Gardening

You would hardly expect people on boats to have much chance to indulge in gardening but you’d be wrong. Lots of boats have rows of window boxes lined up on the roof (cabin top) alight with displays of flowers and I’m a bit sniffy about them. I take a practical attitude to our boat and like to think of myself as an accomplished sailor doing things in a workmanlike manner. To me the cabin top is working space not to be cluttered with frivolities.
May, on the other hand, likes to see the plants and suggested that we join the bourgeoisie. I was having none of it but she persisted till I said in jest that the only plants I could accept would be good practical vegetables. And this I supposed was an end to the matter. May pondered a moment and said, “Well we could compromise and grow cauliflowers.” It sounded ludicrous and appealed to my sense of humor so this summer we proudly cruised the country with a fine crop of Webb’s Delight.
In the early part of July our little plants were showing signs of stress because of the drought. This caused gentle May some unhappiness when she discovered them wilting after a weekend’s absence. She would have watered them with the last of our drinking water but as I knew it would be nearly a full day before we could fill the tank I told her they would have to make do with canal water.
At the time we were plowing through the outskirts of Birmingham where the water had become tainted with oil. It was not possible to persuade May that it would do the plants no harm. She had a plan.
Squatting there on the roof she spread her skirt over the boxes and slowly crouched along astride them giving her own warm waters. Maybe I should have asked her permission first but the occasion would soon be past so I grabbed the camcorder and filmed her gardening maneuvers. She scolded me in her charming way and the incident was forgotten.
The next time the camcorder was used we set it to a time–lapse mode so that the plants’ movement during the day could be seen. Several weeks went by and the first signs of the flower heads emerged. It was evening and we had tied up near Goring on the Thames. I took some more footage of the precious plants looking at their best. That night I got drunk.
It will be obvious from these accounts that, despite May’s good opinion of me, I am a flawed character. That evening I was, to my shame, very childish. Standing on the cabin roof I attempted to pee in a huge arc onto the bank. It’s something that middle–aged men really should not do. Unknown to me May filmed the event but only captured the last few moments as my stream declined and I amused myself by watering the crop of healthy cauliflowers.
The last episode of our gardening exploit was also captured on film as we proudly recorded the now fully mature heads to a backdrop beside Regents Park after a triumphant passage through London on the river and back via Limehouse. (Our advertising venture with the boat required that we pass through as many urban centers as possible on the yearlong trip.)
Each year we try to spend some time with Anna–Marie and Nathan and this year we met them on our way north near Milton Keynes. May had been honing her domestic skills and treated us all to a fine meal, which included one of our own cauliflowers. There in the cabin lit by candlelight, we managed a few minutes beforehand to film the feast all laid out.
Just before the end of our cruise we took a lot of footage at a rally of boats on the Trent near Newark. Being busy with other things during the autumn we completely forgot about the cauliflowers till a surprise visit from our advertisers. They wanted to see how our trip had gone so we showed them the tapes of the various places we had visited and the numerous business customers we had introduced to their products.
There we were with camcorder plugged into the TV, showing potential publicity shots of satisfied customers when the rapid series of pictures showing the cauliflowers appeared. What they saw was our boat pulling away from a factory near Wolverhampton with line of window boxes clearly visible. Just peaking over the edge was a line of tiny green plants. Next there was May squatting over them and moving along the row, it was quite obvious that she was peeing on them.
Before we could stop it the show continued with the plants turning rapidly to face the sun and immediately sprouting healthy flower heads. This was followed by a brief view of me peeing on them and their sudden attainment of full maturity at Regents Park. I knew it was pointless to stop the showing now so it continued with a view of the celebration dinner featuring the cauliflower. This merged into our pictures of the Newark rally.
If only we had been sensible enough to do some editing before the showing. In the event the directors were a fairly broad–minded bunch and they found the whole thing hugely amusing. The portly, good–living, chief man suggested that we had discovered a miracle working method of solving world food shortages. Indeed all three of them so enjoyed the show that they asked for copies of the tape uncut. We later found out that it was shown at a business conference with their parent company directors from America. It was such a boozy do that even the woman from Cincinnati found it funny. Being called Griselda, she needed some lightening up.
We have decided that we shall not be gardening next year because our advertisers have commissioned us to do a much longer tour which will not leave us so much time for such diversions but it will put quite enough money in the kitty for us to buy our vegetables and indeed have a bottle or two of wine with them.
There will be an added complication next year since, as May hinted some time ago; there is a baby to consider.
Until I met May I would have said my life was dull, you need other people to share events in order to bring out the flavor. There is one aspect to my solitary life that bears upon this wet chronicle. It also concerns gardening on the cabin roof.
To wile away the evenings tied up in some distant retreat I would drive the teapot and smoke a little weed. The plants grew in a bowl on the roof just behind the chimney. One evening I moored close to a hippy community and in the morning found that one of my plants had been harvested. As there were several more I didn’t begrudge them their small theft, I could hardly complain. Just as an indicator of my attitude I find it ridiculous that a wild species native to our island should now be seen as an illegal substance particularly as it was once a widespread major crop as well for the making of ropes. Workers in the fields used to chew it as they trudged behind the horses.
Later that same crop was there beside me as I chatted with a character from the only other boat within miles. Indeed we were miles from any habitation so there is no doubt that he was the one who called the attention of the police who came next day with a warrant and took the plants when I was out. I hope he pisses himself just before he meets the queen.
May took less interest in the habit as she hates smoking but she has sometimes agreed to a special infusion or some cakes. On one of these interludes we had rather misjudged the strength of the brew and acted foolishly which you’ll note is not rare in these tales.
Our day’s travel was over and a tranquil lounge in the gloaming seemed like a good idea. We made our special pot of tea and sat on deck sipping and reminiscing. The pot went down very well indeed so we had another. Now we’ve found that cannabis tends to reduce the urge to pee and so we had really not noticed how much we drank that evening.
A wander along the bank before bed, maybe stop to feed the ducks, perhaps a diversion to a pub or even drop in on some friends who were nearby all felt right. When setting off I felt a bit fuzzy so May who is less used to the stuff must have been far away. How we came to enter the pub with two ducks waddling behind us cannot be explained. The landlord took it in good part but had to remove the livestock, as we were incapable. That is to say we could do the moving about and saying, “shoo” but the ducks paid no attention.
Then there was the matter of paying for the drinks. I got it into my head that we had not paid and was trying to persuade the landlord to accept a second payment. Before we left I approached him a third time much to the amusement of the other customers. May too, had her moment.
She went to the ladies but somehow forgot to pee. As we sauntered towards our friends she told how she had gone into the “stall” and felt a bit weak so had sat on the throne for a while to contemplate things and lost count of time. Thinking she had been there a long time she went back into the bar. In the interim her desire to pee had gone.
Of course now that she knew she had not relieved the system it told her to make amends which was not possible for it was a warm evening and there were plenty of people taking a stroll. We turned up at our friends who are well aware of the ‘spliff effect’ and were treated with amused tolerance. Once again she forgot her need to pee.
Talking for an hour or so with more to drink I excused myself and slipped into the bushes by their boat. It’s normal procedure for boat people since the loo has to be emptied by pump out and is an unpleasant activity so good manners requires you to leave whatever you can for nature to dispose of if it is at all possible. May showed no desire to follow suit even when the lady of the boat offered her the opportunity. Well you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it pee.
Although it was a couple of hours since our special pot of tea, May appeared to be more affected. She talked continuously, rambling at times about her plastic factory job, and then changing subject in mid–sentence to tell how very fond she is of her pink pants. Before we could stop her she had changed direction again and undertook a realistic imitation of our friend AnnaMarie mincing about when drunk and desperate to pee, a scene recounted here previously.
Our hosts took all this with great good humor so I could not tell how serious the situation was, being myself quite “distant” from proceedings. We did make it back in the end. I undid the cabin door and asked if a last cup of coffee might be a good idea. May agreed and went to sit on a fence while I manned the galley.
My wife may be chubby but I find her very attractive particularly when she is unaware of what she’s doing. I’ve tried hard to help her to a more advanced dress sense but she takes little notice. Looking out of the window I saw her perched on the top rung of the fence with her feet on the rung below. The short skirt she favors had ridden up her thighs and I looked out straight between her knees. With a smile on her face she was gazing off into the distance waving her hand slightly in time to a melody she could hear in her head.
For a while I stayed still to enjoy her. The tune appeared to be a slow waltz time, slow, quick, quick, slow, quick, quick. She’d gone through this five or more times when I noticed she was weeing in time to the music, squirt dah dah, squirt dah dah. There was nobody about so I let her go on.
The tune came to an end and she sat back a bit and she glanced down at her bosom, which is full. She smiled more broadly as she noticed her nipples pushing the fabric out. She reached up and touched each with her finger and gave a shudder then clasped her hands behind her head tucked her toes under the rung, leaned further back and peed with her eyes closed.
Here I decided was the time to bring out the coffee. I came out to join her smiling, she watched me without comment. Taking the cup she said, “It is a lovely evening.” When I replied “Yes” I was thinking more of her than the beauties of nature all around.
As if I had not seen what went before she said, “I just had a lovely pee.” Pretending not to have seen it I looked meaningfully at the splashes on the fence and said, “I see.”
From the last report you will see that our adventures will have to take a new turn and I’ll leave May to tell it.
X from Robert and X from May
Robert and May